Monthly digest

In the second half of April, Russian forces changed their assault tactics, switching from attacking with small groups to conducting large-scale assaults using heavy equipment and large infantry units. On 17th April, Russia carried out a large-scale assault in the Zaporizhzhia direction with some 320 soldiers and 40 pieces of heavy equipment, including armoured vehicles and three tanks.  Ukraine successfully repelled the attack with around three-quarters of the equipment destroyed and some 140 Russian soldiers eliminated. On the same day, in the Pokrovsk direction, 229 Russian soldiers, 24 armoured fighting vehicles, 99 motorcycles and 2 cars were also destroyed. The same change of tactics has also taken place in other directions. In some cases, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFRF) managed to improve their positions, moving the frontline forward. During the Easter ceasefire, Russia continued conducting assaults and preparing for further attacks. According to the Ukrainian government, the total losses incurred by the Russian army as of late April stood at 953.000. In April 2025, the number was around 40.000. 

The AFRU continue to launch strikes on Ukrainian settlements, using cruise missiles, aerial bombs, and kamikaze drones. The cities of Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Cherkasy, Poltava, Mykolayiv, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kropyvnytskyi, Dnipro, Pavlohrad, Nikopol, Kryvyi Rih, Marhanets, Kamyanske, Izyum, Kupyansk, Pokrovsk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostyantynivka were subject to Russian attacks in April, as well as other Ukrainian cities, villages and towns.  

The Defence Forces of Ukraine (DFU) continue to launch strikes on military facilities located on Russian territories and Ukraine’s occupied territories. For example, on 11th April, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) carried out a missile strike on the forward control post of the Russian troops of the 30th Motorized Rifle Regiment in the village of Guyevo, in the Kursk region, located close to the front line. Several Russian commanders were killed. On 14th April, the DFU hit the permanent deployment station of the 448th missile brigade of the Russian army in Kursk province, which had previously launched a missile strike on Sumy on Palm Sunday. The DFU carried out a further strike on the permanent deployment station of the 112nd missile brigade of the AFRF. On 22nd April, as a result of an explosion, a fire broke out in one of the largest ammunition depots of the Main Missile and Artillery Centre of the Russian Ministry of Defence located at Kirzhach in the Vladimir province, some 60 km from Moscow. According to media reports, Iskander, C-300, and C-400 missiles were stored there, along with other types of ammunition, most of which were destroyed as a result of the explosions. On 23rd April, a factory where strike drones are assembled was hit in the Yelabuga rayon in Tatarstan (located over 1000 km from Ukraine). On the night of 28th April, Kremniy El, a plant producing military microelectronics, was attacked in Bryansk.  

Compulsory evacuation of civilians is underway in several settlements in Donetsk province. During April, 174 residents were relocated to safer regions in Ukraine. This included 21 children and 60 citizens with reduced mobility. At the end of April, the forcible evacuation from several settlements in Dnipropetrovsk oblast was undertaken due to residents finding themselves too close to the contact line.  

On 19th April, on the eve of Easter, another prisoners of war swap (POWs) between Ukraine and Russia took place. Ukraine managed to return 277 POWs. 246 of them were returned within the framework of the swap, while another 31 returned to Ukraine outside the scope of this exchange. At the same time, information was received about at least three cases of Ukrainian POWs being executed by Russian soldiers.  

As a result of repatriation measures, the bodies of 909 Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine on 18th April. The bodies of the soldiers who fell in Kurakhove, Pokrovsk, Bakhmut and other directions were among them, along with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers that have been kept in morgues located on Russian territory.

According to official information, as of the morning of 25th April, over 2,546 Ukrainian children were affected by Russian full-scale aggression against Ukraine. 622 citizens were killed, with over 1,924 people having sustained injuries of different degrees of severity. 165,975 war crimes and crimes of aggression have been registered, as well as 21,955 crimes against Ukraine’s national security.  

Russia continues to deliberately destroy Ukraine’s cultural heritage and kill members of the art community, dealing a major blow to identity, memory, and historical heritage. As of 30th April 2025, Russia’s full-scale aggression claimed the lives of 200 Ukrainian artists and 103 journalists (including foreigners). In the city of Sumy, a Russian missile damaged important cultural heritage monuments and buildings, including local museums, theatres and the regional philharmonic, which claimed the life of Olena Kohut, a teacher and artist. On 1st April, a house of culture was destroyed in Krasnopillia. In total, 1,419 cultural heritage sites and 2,233 facilities of cultural infrastructure have been damaged, with 409 completely destroyed. The brunt of the attacks has been borne by cultural clubs, libraries, museums and theatres in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Sumy, and other provinces. Since the beginning of the invasion, over 546.000 museum exhibits from 63 museums in 12 regions (e.g., from Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk provinces) of Ukraine have been evacuated. 

Russia is destroying Crimea’s ecosystem. The December 2024 incident with the Volgoneft tankers led to a large-scale M-100 fuel oil spill in the Black Sea, which (if the Russian occupational administration is to be believed) has already resulted in the contamination of 1500 tons of soil and sand in Crimea and Sevastopol. According to the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the environmental disaster is being exacerbated by the militarisation of the peninsula, the illegal extraction of sand, deforestation, the destruction of nature reserves, waste management facilities and sea ecosystems. Russia has repurposed the Opuk cape into a test range, erecting military infrastructure, incinerators and blocking international missions. This is part of Russia’s systematic efforts aimed at destroying the environment of the peninsula. The costs inflicted on facilities located in the natural reserves of temporarily occupied Crimea due to Russian armed aggression may be as high as 79 billion UAH. Violations of the preservation order have been registered in 208 nature reserve facilities.  

Russian armed aggression has led to massive human losses including civilians, employees of critically important sectors, and religious figures. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, 13,000 civilians have perished. Around 10,000 people are currently being held in Russian captivity, with another 63,000 missing. 234 employees in the defence sector have been killed, as well as 67 priests and monks (killed or tortured to death). 640 religious facilities have been destroyed. Over 63,000 energy infrastructure facilities have been damaged as a result of massive and precise air attacks. 160 employees from the energy sector have also been killed. Since February 2022, 336 Ukrainians have been killed by explosives (among them 18 children), with 825 people injured. Almost a quarter of Ukraine’s territory (over 139.000 square km) is considered potentially hazardous.  

Russia is deliberately exploiting Ukrainian teens as a tool for terror, turning them into victims and perpetrators of crimes. Since the beginning of 2025, the Russian secret services have been recruiting children under 18 en masse with the purpose of making them conduct terror attacks, acts of sabotage and arson (in some cases with the use of explosives). According to the Security Service of Ukraine, 22% of the perpetrators are children recruited through social networks and messengers. In 2025 alone, over 50 cases have been registered. Russia is consciously using children as disposable resources in its hybrid war against Ukraine.  

The murder of an imprisoned journalist has become another proof of Russia’s criminal actions towards civilians. The body of journalist, Viktoria Roshchyna, who was killed in Russian captivity, was given to Ukraine on 14th February 2025, displaying signs of torture. During the autopsy, a few internal organs were found to be missing. The body had also been labelled a ‘an unidentified male person’. Ukrainian investigative authorities have documented traces of torture, stab wounds and an attempt to conceal a violent death. The journalist was being detained, without having any procedural status, after she was put on the list of people to be exchanged.